Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

DIRECTED BY: Adam Marcus

STORY BY: Jay Huguely & Adam Marcus

SCREENPLAY BY: Dean Lorey & Jay Huguely

MUSIC BY: Henry Manfredini

RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes

DISTRIBUTOR: New Line Cinema

STARRING

John D. LeMay; Kari Keegan; Steven Williams; Billy Green Bush; Steven Culp; Allison Smith; Rusty Schwimmer; Erin Gray; and Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees

PLOT:

Opens with what looks like some standard Crystal Lake goings on. A beautiful young woman goes out to the Camp to spend the night. She undresses to take a shower and gets chased by Jason. All of a sudden, she runs Jason right into an ambush, where a team of FBI agents blast his body into several burning pieces. At the Morgue the Coroner eats Jason's heart and essentially becomes Jason. He works his way back to Crystal Lake, where he needs to find one of his few surviving relatives, through whom he can be reborn. A bounty hunter named Creighton Duke, who is pledged to hunt Jason down and a young man named Steven Freeman team up to try to save Jason's final surviving relative and destroy him once and for all.

MYTHOS INFORMATION:

  • Some time after part 8 Jason made his way back to Crystal Lake.

  • According to "American Case File" Jason is reported to have been responsible for 83 murders, and suspected to be responsible for many more.

  • Jason has a sister Diana Kimble. In part I Mrs. Voorhees says that Jason was her only child. We can assume that Diana is his half sister, meaning his mother is someone other than Mrs. Voorhees.

  • Steven tell the hitchhikers that the cabins at Camp Crystal Lake were torn down, a few prior, presumably after the murders in part 6.

    STORY:

    After Jason Takes Manhattan Paramount decided to end their relationship with the Friday the 13th movies. New Line Cinema had killed horror icon Freddy Kruger and had an idea of making a crossover film with Jason. They bought the rights to the Friday franchise with the plan being, do a movie in which Jason is killed than do Freddy vs. Jason. They were able to convince part 1s director/producer Sean S. Cunningham to come onboard as producer. Cunningham hired 24 year old aspiring film-maker Adam Marcus, who had run errands for him on the set of the original. Marcus is a member of the new generation of "post-modern" film makers who frequently puts references to other film in their own (others post moderns include Kevin Willamson, Quinten Tarrintino, and Kevin Smith.) They are not steeling since they are not passing these ideas off as their own. In fact they expect other hard-core genre fans (the kind of people who would read a page like this) to notice the references.

    Returning after an absence from part 8 is composer Henry Manfredini who returned to write the music for this one. John D. Lemay was cast as the lead in this movie after an assistant director recommended him because of his work on the Friday the 13th TV series. Steven Williams & Erin Gray, both veterans of numerous TV shows were cast in supporting roles. The movie was filmed during the summer of 1992 with a non-union crew.

    The movie was released (Friday) August 13, 1993 and made some decant money. The film did piss off many of the hard core fans who did not like all of the stylistic and mythology changes from the straight forward approach of the early Friday movies. As horror films were not terribly popular at the time New Line decided that neither the final Jason or Freddy movies were successful enough to warrant making Freddy vs. Jason at the time. The shelved the project, possibly forever.

    TRIVIA:

  • Ties with Part V for the most deaths 22 in all. In Part V all of the deaths happen onscreen, in this one several deaths are not seen.

  • Grossed $15.935 million domestically.

  • Sean S. Cunningham, who directed Part I, served as producer on this one. He hired 24 year old Adam Marcus, an old friend of his son's who had run errands for him on the set of Part I, to develop a story and direct it.

  • After the first screening the test audience wanted more nudity so the sequence was added where Steven picking up the hitchhikers who go the crystal lake, have sex and get slaughtered.

  • According to the police officers badges Crystal Lake is in Cunningham County; which is named after producer/director of part I Sean S. Cunningham.

  • Sheriff Landis is named after John Landis, the director of An American Werewolf in London and The Howling.

  • Josh is thrown out the window in a similar fashion to Michael Myers in Halloween. There is also a reference to the Myers house.

  • There is a copy of the Necronomicon in Voorhees' house; the Necronomicon has appeared in the Evil Dead films and several other works of gothic horror

  • During the in the Police Station and Diner battles there are several Terminator references. Robert behaves like Terminator 2's T-1000. During the Diner battle Vicki is dressed in a similar waitress uniform to the one that Sarah Connor wears in The Terminator.

    DEATHS:

  • Assistant Coroner (Dean Lorey): Stabbed in the neck with an examination probe; face smashed into a mettle grate
  • FBI Agent #1 (Tony Ervolina): Pencil through the back of the neck (offscreen) corps shown on American Case File
  • FBI Agent #2 (Kane Hodder): Skull crushed (offscreen) corps shown on American Case File
  • Alexis the blonde camper (Kathryn Atwood): Cut up with a razor blade
  • Deborah, the dark-haired camper (Michelle Clurie): Impaled with a mettle fence post, than split in half (Directors Cut)
  • Luke, the boy camper (Michael Silver): Presumably killed (offscreen)
  • Edna (Diana Georger): Head slammed in a car door
  • Coroner (Richard Grant): Jason parasite possesses Josh, Coroner's body presumably melts away
  • Diana Kimble (Erin Gray): Pole in the back
  • Josh (Andrew Bloch): Jason Parasite possesses Robert Campbell, Josh's body disintegrates
  • Officer Ryan (Madelon Curtis): Head bashed into a locker
  • Officer Mark (Mark Thompson) & Officer Brian (Brian Phelps): Heads bashed together
  • Ward (Adam Cranner): Arm broken, thrown through doors to diner
  • Shelby (Lesli Jordan): Face shoved into a deep friar
  • Joey B. (Rusty Schwimmer): Face bashed in
  • Vicki (Allison Smith): Impaled with a mettle rod, head crushed
  • Robert Campbell (Steven Culp): Jason Parasite possesses Randy, Robert's body presumably melts away (all happens offscreen)
  • Sheriff Landis (Billy Green Bush): Stabbed/falls into magic dagger
  • Randy (Kipp Marcus): Decapitated with a machete, Jason parasite leaves body
  • Creighton Duke (Steven Williams): Crushed by Jason's bare hands
  • Jason Voorhees (Kane Hodder): Stabbed with the magic dagger by Jessica Kimble, body pulled into hell by demonic hands

    • SEX/NUDITY

  • Agent Elizabeth Marcus (Julie Michaels): T&A as she undresses to take a shower (wonder if that thong is standard FBI issue). Gets chased by Jason while wearing a towel (what do you think the odds are that she could keep that towel on while running and jumping through the woods. Better question would she even try; think about the alternatives, get seen naked by some fellow agents or waste precious seconds adjusting a towel while being chased by a maniac with a machete ;-)

  • Deborah (Michelle Clurie), Luke (Michael Silver), and Alexis (Kathryn Atwood) are seen after skinny dipping. Alexis is wearing just a pair of underwear but her breasts are covered by her hands. The side of Michael's bare butt is seen a couple of times while fooling around with Deborah. Deborah's breasts are seen while she is changing and again, along with a VERY BRIEF full frontal, while she is having sex with Michael. (Director's Cut)

  • Jessica Kimble (Kari Keegan) is seen in her underwear when preparing to take a shower. During the shower nothing is really seen. After the shower she is wearing a bathrobe, brief butt shot as Steven sits her in the car

    • ALTERNATE VERSIONS:

  • Several cuts had to be made to the film in order to receve an R rating:
    They were put back into the unrated video version.

    Jason is shot more times in the begining

  • More of the coroner eating Jason's heart

  • The sex scene is longer and Deborah is stabbed with a fence pole and than split in half

  • Longer sequence of Josh disolving

  • Durring the police station battle the back of Robert Campbell's head is blown off

  • Ward's arm is broken to the point where the bone tears out of the skin

  • More gore in the diner massacre

  • Vicki's head is crushed

  • Creighton's death is more gruesome

  • Several scenes were also cut for time:
    Some appear in the TV version of the move

  • An early scene at the diner where the relationships between Diana and the Sheriff and between Steven and Randy are explained

  • With the bonus footage Creighton Duke would not have been locked up for the almost fight at the diner but for breaking into the morgue. When Sharrif Landis asks why he was there he replys that he was trying to steal Dania's body, but somebody got there first.

  • David's head is bashed aginst a faucet

  • The deaths of the two FBI agents at the morgue is shown

    Join the Campaign for a high quality Jason goes to hell DVD from New Line Cinema:

    *******************UPDATE*******************

    Got this in my e-mail box today. I don't know if the address it came from is really Adam Marcus and I have no idea if it's true but I sure hope so:

    To whoever's out there,

    This is Adam Marcus the director and co-writer of JGTH. I just did the audio commentary track for a cool New Line DVD version of JGTH. They are planning on a bunch of bells, whistles and hidden features. It should be great. I'm giving them full access to my archives and since I've been around since the first picture, I gots lots o' stuff.

    I also wanted to thank you guys for supporting the film in getting it to DVD. I know there are fans who don't care for JGTH because there isn't enough Jason in it. The shame of that is that it was a decision that was made for the fans. We talked to a lot of people who really wanted a shake up in the series. A lot of fans said they were tired of the mask and so on. Dean Lorey and I wanted to treat the audience as smartly as we could and still give them a film that kicked some serious ass. Hopefully more people will find the film on DVD thanks, in part, to people like yourself.

    The movie should be out in the first or second week of October.

    Thanks again for your support,
    adam marcus

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